It was 8,600 kilometres away, on France’s verdant south coast along the Mediterranean Sea, that the seeds for Derek Cornelius’s transplant to Vancouver were planted.

Cornelius was part of Canada’s U-21 squad playing in the prestigious invitational soccer tournament last May. The 6-2 centre-back was one of Canada’s best players in the tournament, anchoring a Reds defence that surrendered just one goal in three group-stage games, then two to 12-time champion France in the knockout round.

Four Vancouver Whitecaps products were part of that team — forward Theo Bair, and midfielders David Norman Jr., Noah Verhoeven and Michael Baldisimo. (It should be noted that Bair and Verhoeven scored two of Canada’s three goals in Toulon). They all talked up the virtues of playing in the Caps’ organization.

Cornelius heard the same from Marcel de Jong, Russell Teibert, Doneil Henry and, of course, Alphonso Davies when in his three caps for the senior team in the months that followed.

On Friday, Cornelius was officially announced as a member of the Whitecaps, signing a one-year Major League Soccer deal with options for two more.

Derek Cornelius poses with friends and family after being capped for Canada in a CONCACAF Nations League qualifying game in Toronto in October.Canada Soccer /
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“It has been a club that I’ve followed, especially with Alphonso, and seeing his progression. From the start, it sounded like a very good place to be playing my football,” said the 21-year-old.

“I felt coming here would be somewhere I could come to and adjust quickly because I already know some of these guys, great guys, from the national team experiences. And that would help me adjust and make Vancouver feel like my home.”

Home for Cornelius will always be the Toronto suburb of Ajax, Ont., but it’s somewhere he hasn’t lived since 2014. After scoring 23 goals in 34 games for Unionville-Milliken, he moved to Germany to play for VfB Lübeck’s youth side, and his father, who’d accompanied him, returned home after six months.

Two years later, Cornelius transferred to VfR Neumünster, before spending another two seasons with Serbian side Javor Matis.

Now he’s traded blutwurst and pljeskavica for West Coast sushi — though he’s definitely not a sushi guy, he says — but his hunger is unsatiated.

“I’m just excited to get in and start playing,” he said. “(Moving to Germany) was very nerve-racking, but at the same time, it was exciting. It was a completely new challenge, a completely new environment; I didn’t speak the language, and everything was new to me.

“But I always tried to keep the end goal in mind. I took it day by day, tried to improve every day … both on and off the field. The time really flew by, if I’m honest. It feels like yesterday when I was leaving my home for the first time to live in Germany.”

The Canadian team’s performance in Toulon under John Herdman’s high-pressing 4-3-3 was impressive, a stylistic brand of football also embraced by new Whitecaps coach Marc Dos Santos. The left-footed Cornelius is an excellent ball-moving centre-back, also the type of player coveted by Dos Santos.

The progression he’s shown, mostly out of view of the majority of Canadian soccer fans, is even more impressive considering he played striker up until his move to Neumünster in 2017.

“My coach there saw something. He said ‘You’re left-footed, have good size, and see the game well … why don’t you give centre-back a try?’” said Cornelius. “I went in there with an open mind … and I think I’ve done well since making the switch.

“I think I use (my experience as a striker) to my advantage. I say that a lot, because then I have an idea in my mind already … of what the striker wants to do, what frustrates a striker, in general how to stop that striker. I think that could have been my own path.

“I’m learning my position by playing the position I’m up against.”

Cornelius is still learning the intricacies of his position, but as it stands he’s one of just two centre-backs the Whitecaps have under contract. They did take select centre-back Brendan McDonough from Georgetown University in the MLS SuperDraft, but odds of making the team are stacked against most late-round selections.

Cornelius is focused on the process he needs to follow to establish himself as an MLS starter — the same path the team will follow as it establishes a new identity, new culture, as their incoming head coach leads the team into a new era minus 18 faces from last year’s squad.

“For me, it’s a great opportunity. It’s almost like a rebuild process, and it’s always good to get in at the very beginning,” he said.

“I think my biggest thing is figuring out how to lead, not just by example, but how to get the best out of my teammates around me.

“I believe on focusing on getting the best out of yourself, but there are 11 players on the pitch. It’s not an individual sport, so you have to look at how you can get the guy beside you playing to the best of his ability.”

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